


Game Over

by tavrosroofies (troof)



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Enthusiastic Consent, M/M, Spanking, Spoilers, improper use of tags, it took me 58 tries to beat hades and i want you all to know, there's nothing else really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29041662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troof/pseuds/tavrosroofies
Summary: Zagreus is incredibly frustrated. He’s fought his way through everything the Underworld can throw at him—wringers, wretched witches, megagorgons—every creature and every creature that’s derivative of that creature he has fought, and probably slain, a hundred thousand times.All this would be fine if he was making progress, but he gets to the surface and there’s this…barrier. He is held back from all he might become by forces unknowable and forces unseen that won’t allow him to see the real world.Ελλάδα, it is called, Greece. He wonders what Greece is like.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	Game Over

**Author's Note:**

> I tried

_I use a razor to TAKE off the edge  
“JUMP off the ledge,” they said.  
“Take the LASER, AIM AT MY HEAD,  
and paint the walls red,” I said.  
“I’m CRAZY, I’m off the meds,  
I’m BETTER OFF DEAD,” they said.  
I use a razor to take off the edge  
Jump off the ledge  
I’m selling tickets to my downfall  
I’m selling tickets to my downfall  
I’m selling tickets to my downfall_

_-“Title Track,” Machine Gun Kelly (Tickets to my Downfall, 2020)_

Zagreus is incredibly frustrated. He’s fought his way through everything the Underworld can throw at him—wringers, wretched witches, megagorgons—every creature and every creature that’s derivative of that creature he has fought, and probably slain, a hundred thousand times.

He can’t even count the amount of times he’s defeated the Bone Hydra or Meg and the Furies anymore. He used to be able to count the number of times on his fingers and toes, but if he were to keep doing that, he would need to have another set. And another. Maybe multiples of Zagreus to keep counting.

And the number of times he’s defeated Hades? Considerably less, but they’ve fought so many times now that every time he goes up there it’s more like a weird father-son bonding experience than a duel. Somehow, he feels that these constant spats, these fights-but-not-fights with his father have made them closer. It’s certainly improved their relationship down here.

All this would be fine if he was making progress, but he gets to the surface and there’s this…barrier. He is held back from all he might become by forces unknowable and forces unseen that won’t allow him to see the real world.

Ελλάδα, it is called, Greece. He wonders what Greece is like.

Below his feet, the carpet starts to steam and he thinks there’ll probably be burn marks once he moves. The flaming parts of him always burn a little hotter when he’s keyed up. Besides, he has this terrible pressure headache around his temples, like something in his head has gone tight, like someone has wrapped a thin cloth band around the circumference of his head to measure it and they’re pulling it, pulling on it tight.

But then he thinks, Is he greedy? How far can he push Fate?

He has a mom. Zagreus can hardly believe it. Nyx is his mom, too, but Persephone…he can look at his mom now, and look in the mirror, and know where his eyes came from, his hair…his red blood. His red blood that had been an anomaly otherwise.

It’s amazing to see, and through this whole process, he’s learned that people care about him—Achilles, Meg--but it’s still not enough. Is he greedy? He has two lovers, as if one wasn’t enough for him. He has friends and training partners, and parents that love each other, and none of them would want him to feel like this. He knows he can go to them sometimes when the pressure gets too much, but what he’s craving today is something darker, something he can’t easily ask for. But can’t he?

It occurs to him that Thanatos helps him through the most difficult parts of the Underworld, even though he doesn’t understand Zagreus’s desire, even though he says that the sunlight on the surface is too bright for him, and why would he want to go up there. He steels his courage, gets Thanatos alone, and the next time they’re alone, he asks him.

\---

“I want you to spank me, Than.”

Immediately, Thanatos frowns, and his brows meet briefly in the middle before he smooths his expression again. “Don’t you have Meg to do that?”

“Yeah, but…I want to experience it with you.” Zagreus reaches out to Thanatos and then lets his hand fall flat against his side when Thanatos doesn’t reach out to close the gap between them.

“I’m…not good at things like that,” Thanatos tells him. His eyes flick over to Zagreus’s hand and then back to his face. “Zagreus, you know I like you, but I’m not mean, or dominant.” Then it occurs to him that maybe he’s just seen the worst of things up in Elysium where they hide sex clubs in the bathhouses and hold orgies every night and maybe Zagreus isn’t asking for what he thinks he is at all. “Do you mean you want me to hit you a couple times while we’re having sex?”

“No, I mean a full-on spanking. Although I like you inside me, maybe we don’t even have sex, it’s just you hitting me.”

“That doesn’t sound pleasurable for you.”

Zagreus looks up, concern in both his white sclera and his black one. He picks up some stray fabrics off the floor and deposits them in a basket. “Yeah? Well, it is, so, if you think it’s weird I guess we won’t do it.”

Thanatos levels his stare at Zagreus. “I’ll do it for you, Zag. I just don’t know what you get out of it.”

“Do I have to?”

“Have to what?”

“Have to get something out of it?”

Thanatos thinks back to earlier when he saw Zagreus coming out of the Pool and he knows he had a difficult run, because he talked to Hypnos and saw that Zagreus hasn’t even been making it to his father at the entrance to the Underworld. He doesn’t know if Hypnos is putting these pieces together, that Zagreus seems to be making even less progress than he was at the beginning, or if he can begin to fathom what that means. Hypnos isn’t one for thinking of these things.

Zagreus frowns. “A trip out of my head, I suppose. You know that feeling when you can lose yourself to sensation and not feel a thing? I’ve had it with ransacking my father’s domain. And nectar, and ambrosia.”

Thanatos recalls the bottles he’s been finding here and there around the Underworld. Giving them to strangers and Thanatos, except for recently, but he has been drinking more himself, as of late. It makes sense that he’s discouraged.

“So you think spanking is going to do this?”

“Look, Than, I don’t want to make you do this if you’re uncomfortable. I just thought…in a way, it could make us grow closer.” Thanatos loosens his grip on his scythe, and feels his shoulders relax. “I know it’s a weird thing, and different.” Zagreus’s eyes dart away again, and Thanatos realizes he has to step in because there’s no way he wants his lover to be ashamed of his desires.

Thanatos leans closer and cups his cheeks. “I like you, Zagreus. There’s no reason to be ashamed of something like this.” Zagreus leans back slightly, and although their lips are inches apart, Zagreus’s looking ripe and plush, Thanatos restrains himself. He doesn’t want to complicate this with any extra feelings.

“I’m not ashamed. I just didn’t know if you would like it. This is the first time we’ve ever done such a thing. Just you and I, I mean. No Meg.”

Thanatos backs up and Zagreus scoots himself up on the bed. “Do you want to call me ‘master?’ Or ‘sir?’”

“Well, I won’t be calling you ‘mistress,’ that’s for sure. Do you desire for me to call you either of those things?”

“Well, that’s just it, Zag,” Thanatos confesses. “I don’t desire power over you.”

“Do you desire my vulnerability?”

And oh. That question catches Thanatos off guard. He can feel the heat pooling underneath his robes, the bolt of heat that just sent itself to his nether regions.

Zagreus’s lips curl into a smile, and his feet flare just a little bit brighter in the way that Thanatos can tell that he’s way too delighted with himself. Thanatos blushes, and turns away. He bites his knuckle.

A long time ago, he would have whisked himself away during moments like this. Trying to avoid too much intimacy with Zagreus or when he feels that he’s struck a chord inside him, inadvertently, touched on feelings he’s tried to suppress. But having a relationship means he needs to avoid that, he’s slowly learning. He remembers that last time, Zagreus caught his hand right before he was about to disappear and asked him if he would not do that anymore. If he would stay.

Zagreus seems to sense his unease, so he gets up and rests a hand over his shoulder, rubbing circles into his upper back. Thanatos arches into the sensation, pressing back into it. “It’s okay. I won’t judge you for desiring such things.”

In the hand that’s currently massaging his back, Thanatos can feel the lifeblood pulsing strong beneath Zagreus’s skin. It has an angry thrum to it. Although Zagreus is smiling, Thanatos can see the tiny line in between his brows, the hurt he’s concealing, and it makes his face crumple in turn.

“I didn’t know that I did desire such things. It seems sometimes that you drag it out of me.” He bites the inside of his lip. “Will you tell me to stop if it becomes too much?”

“Of course, Than. There’s no way I want to push you into something you’re not comfortable with, especially if that something is exceeding my personal limits. Will you tell me to stop as well if I do something you don’t like?”

“Well.”

Zagreus raises and eyebrow and stops the hand rubbing circles on Thanatos’s back. He instead cups his bicep. “Than? I need you to say ‘yes.’”

“Yes. But what could you do in such a situation that would give me pause?”

“I don’t know. But you’ve never inflicted pain on me before. And I know you…to you, I am…”

Thanatos’s heart speeds up in his chest as he gets closer to that word. Suddenly, his belt isn’t sitting right upon his hips. His sword’s at the wrong angle. He shuffles his feet, shifts, adjusts his belt and pulls his chiton tighter across his chest. Clenches the lapel of his chiton in his hand.

Yes, Zagreus is that. Thanatos understands. And so much more.

“Tonight?” he asks tersely, clenching his scythe tightly in the other hand.

“Tonight,” Zagreus tells him, eyes glittering, on his lips a devious smirk. “I’ll be waiting.”

Thanatos does disappear this time.

\---

They have an enchantment over the entrance leading to Zagreus’s room that prevents anyone outside from seeing into his chambers. The enchantment protects against sounds, smells, anything that a person inside the room wouldn’t want anyone outside to hear. It’s similar to the veil used by the Olympians when they appear in mortal form on the surface, wanting to prevent a human from perceiving their divinity. It’s based on Nyx’s darkness. Bless Nyx for being a wonderful mother. Now they can do this undisturbed.

Zagreus starts undressing, first going for the dog skull bone armor around his shoulder, but Thanatos catches his wrist and says, “Wait. Let me undress you.”

And it’s hard, but Zagreus waits, biting his lip, then pressing his toes into the carpet when Thanatos is slow about unwrapping the bandages around his forearms, and unwrapping his chiton. He may be a god, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less affected by the attentions of a lover.

Once Zagreus is bare, then Thanatos settles into the bed, and finds a comfortable seat on the edge so that Zagreus can lie over his lap. Thanatos wears only his long robe and leggings. All other accessories: the belt, the collar, the wings, he’s left by the nightstand neatly arranged. It is only then that it occurs to Zagreus that he’s about to be spanked in his own bed. He closes his eyes and leaves them closed for a second, but reminds himself that this is Thanatos. This is okay.

He bends over Thanatos and lets Thanatos position him as he will, hips settled firmly in his lap, chest supported by the comforter on the bed. He sucks in a breath before it happens.

Thanatos’s strike hits and Zagreus sees stars explode behind his eyes, colored firecrackers that spark throughout his being. The heat and then the cool burn afterwards. He lets out a muffled gasp into the sheets. It’s too intense for him to focus on anything else during the time being. When he tries to think, his mind goes black, and that’s the oblivion that he thinks he’s searching for.

It's so good to have someone taking care of him like this for once. The sting…it spreads throughout his entire body and makes the surface of his skin buzz pleasantly. Zagreus lowers his head, lets it hang down and rest on the comforter.

“That’s it,” Thanatos whispers, leaning over and running a hand through his hair. Tousling it.

It’s that sweetness that Zagreus wanted when he went to Thanatos for this; although Meg is a good lover (fantastic, actually, she listens to all his wants and needs), it’s not as natural for her to be nice in bed. He can go to her and expect degradation and the humiliation he sometimes craves, but tonight he wants to feel the dichotomy as he tries to process why someone who strokes his cheekbones and the curve of his lips in bed is striking him until he’s sore.

It’s because he asked for it, he knows, but that doesn’t make it any less pleasurable.

He jerks against the handcuffs restraining his hands against the small of his back. He can feel the metal links jingle. Thanatos just twines his hands with Zagreus’s and holds them there, firmly, as he gives his bottom another slap. Zagreus jolts.

“Destroy me, Than. Please,” he grunts out, voice low.

The last slap was light. He wants another hard one, like the first one.

He can’t feel how Thanatos is during this. Is he hard? Is he enjoying this? The angle at which he’s bent over his lap doesn’t allow him to feel, and although he’s not blindfolded, he can’t see. All he has to look at is the fabric in front of him or one of the various ornaments on the wall if he doesn’t mind an awkward strain on his neck.

Thanatos slaps him again, but not nearly hard enough. Zagreus squirms against his lap, and Thanatos pulls him in closer, cock dragging against his chiton. “Am I not doing enough?”

“No, no, you’re doing great,” Zagreus breathes out, ever-conscious of the sting. “But you can hit me harder.”

“Like that last one?”

Thanatos brings his hand back and brings it down hard on Zagreus’s bottom. Zagreus cries out, but afterwards, that sweet sensation of releasing tension is still there. Thanatos rubs his hands over what he’s hurt and pinches, and squeezes. Somehow, his rough palm is soothing.

“Yes, like that.”

“Spread your legs,” Thanatos says, and when Zagreus complies he’s instantly aware of how it exposes his balls and cock to the air to be scrutinized. Is Thanatos going to hit his cock? Is Than—

“-Uh!”

Zagreus cries out as Thanatos whips his hand through the air to strike his inner thighs. He never realized he was so sensitive there before. Maybe it’s just one of his erogenous zones. Thanatos then proceeds to strike the curve of his buttocks where it meets his leg, and does the inner thighs again for good measure.

Zagreus pulls his knees up towards his chest to avoid more spanking, but given the fact that he’s laid out on Thanatos’s lap like a dinner feast there’s not much he can hide.

“Did that hurt?”

“Yes!”

Zagreus doesn’t know why Thanatos had to ask. Obviously, that hurt, and obviously, he’s in a lot of pain.

Thanatos doesn’t hit him for a second, and Zagreus takes the time to just breathe, the expansion and relaxation of his lungs pushing him up against the mattress and allowing him to feel the support there, soft and unyielding. Ever so slightly, he relaxes his neck and intakes the cool air. Thanatos traces the vertebra of his spine, and Zagreus focuses on it, the delicate touch of one finger.

“Is that better?”

For a moment, the air is still, and there is no sound in the air except that of their twin breaths.

“Yes.” If he listens, Thanatos is breathing heavily too, although he cannot tell what for.

He shifts his legs together, unconsciously, and Thanatos drops a kiss to the dip of his tailbone. He shifts and pulls Zagreus back up, because he keeps slipping off his lap sideways. Zagreus doesn’t know how to stay on, he’s kind of helpless here with his hands bound behind his back, but he’s okay with letting Thanatos do all the work.

“Than, that is--precisely—what I need,” Zagreus grits out.

“Then I’ll keep giving it to you.”

Zagreus closes his eyes then and the only thing he can focus on is pain blooming behind his lids. Or is it pleasure? It’s like a kaleidoscope he can’t stop staring at. He opens his mouth and allows the air to come out in small puffs, and the corner of his mouth turns up.

“Your ass is so red,” Thanatos says, squeezing and groping, and Zagreus keens. “You have a gorgeous ass, by the way.” Zagreus laughs and buries his head. He knows.

He’s so glad that it’s Thanatos doing this. He’s also so glad that he was right about enjoying this, about the pain turning to pleasure, because that means he’s truly just as fucked up as he thinks he is. Someone who smashes pillars and urns every day. The peace of the Underworld truly has no greater danger.

But then, eventually, as he expected it would, the euphoria fades. He didn’t expect it to feel like it does, though, he feels stripped raw. It feels like falling down from a high wire. The burning sensation after Thanatos hits him no longer feels pleasant; instead, it’s an ever-rolling wave of pain.

He doesn’t realize that he’s scrambling away until he does it, and with his arms where they are he can’t use them to steady himself and he can only ungracefully fall down to the floor. Thanatos grips his shoulder and eases him down until he rests on his knees, knees heavy sinking into the plush carpet.

“Than? Than. Than, Than, Than, Than, Than.” Apparently another thing he doesn’t realize is he’s repeating his lover’s name into the air, like it’s the only lifeline he has.

“Zag, how are you feeling? Talk to me.”

Then Thanatos is there with him, on the floor, brushing the hair away from his eyes. He can feel it sticking to his forehead as a result of how much he sweats.

Suddenly, Thanatos isn’t there anymore, but he feels the drape of Thanatos’s chiton over his shoulder, light and teasing. Zagreus blinks in bewilderment as he feels cool hands at his wrists, undoing the cuffs. Once Zagreus breaks free, he feels hands working the tension out of his biceps, and then hands moving his shoulders. They move his shoulders up towards his ears, and then back towards the base of his spine, so that he can feel his shoulder blades press together. The cuffs fall to the floor with a jingle.

“I feel good, Than, you can keep going.” The blood comes back to his fists in a glacial slide of pins and needles, but he holds out for the moment the blood flow, the oxygen comes fully back. Then his hands will feel back to normal.

But Thanatos doesn’t let them go that easily. He holds Zagreus’s hands in his own, and massages the point behind his wrists. “Are you sure? You sound like you’re in pain.”

Zagreus pants. “Yes, Than.” By now his chest is heaving. But he needs Thanatos to push him through this, he can’t have him stop halfway, or he won’t get the release he’s yearning for.

He takes his hand out of Thanatos’s grip, and cups the back of his neck so that he can move their two faces closer together, so their foreheads are touching. He looks into Thanatos’s eyes when he says this, and he can’t help but notice they’re breathing the same air, sharing the same space, their lips a hair’s breadth apart. “I can’t have you falter now. I can’t...I need you to do this. Believe me when I say I’m close. But I don’t think I can do this for much longer, Than, I can’t…when it gets to that point, I need you to keep going. I’ve heard that that’s when it gets intense.”

“Zagreus.” Thanatos hardly ever uses his full name when talking to him. The fact that he does it now arrests Zagreus’s full attention. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Although he’s this close, he can still see Thanatos’s brows pinch up in the middle, and his voice cracks on his last question like this is breaking his heart.

His ass smarts. It feels like the worst of blisters and the worst of heat on both cheeks like a bunch of angry insect stings or a multitude of angry thorns. He fights against the consciousness that’s trying to drag him under, make him boneless and limp, fights to stay lucid. He closes his eyes and then opens them again. His cock throbs.

With the last of his energy, he falls forward, and presses his lips to Thanatos’s in an uncoordinated, sloppy mess of a kiss. He knows Thanatos hates messes. Somewhere in his head he dimly chastises himself for not being able to do better. He feels around and manages to place Thanatos’s hand on his cock so he can feel how hard he is. Thanatos leans back, but allows Zagreus to take his lips, messy though he is.

“If you don’t like it, you can always safeword out,” Zagreus says, and that’s his last chance. That’s his last effort. If Than won’t do this for him…maybe he was wrong. Maybe he pushed too far.

“I love you, Zag.” They’re already kissing, but Zagreus pulls back in shock to look at him, and Thanatos cups Zag’s cheeks in his palms, strokes the bones there and the corners of his eyes, as if his cheeks weren’t already aflame. Than looks surprised as well, eyes wide and blinking rapidly, but he stays with it, keeping Zagreus enthralled. There’s steel in his eyes above the wet rims, and he won’t let him escape. “I need you to know that.”

Zagreus nods briefly, rigidly, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I want to hear you say it back to me.”

Then, suddenly, like a flower blooming inside his brain, it all slowly makes sense. He thought Thanatos might have a hard time with this specifically because of their feelings for each other, but he never thought it ran this deep. Does Thanatos think that Zagreus doesn’t think he loves him? Doesn’t think that he cares for him specifically because he asked him to spend the evening inflicting pain? If he’s afraid that it’s going to alter the way that they feel towards each other, he can understand all the hesitancy, the apprehension.

“You love me.” Thanatos’s shoulders relax just a tiny fraction, and he can see the rise and fall of his collarbones where he’s removed his neckpiece for the evening. “You, Thanatos, God of Gentle Death, love me, Zagreus Prince of the Underworld.”

“God of Life and Blood.”

“God of Life and Blood.” He still can’t believe that that’s him, sometimes. That he’s god of something. It makes his heart flutter in his chest like one of the night garden’s butterflies.

“Did you know that?”

“I think I did. But it’s good to hear it said.”

At first he thinks that they’re done, but then Thanatos hooks his wrists back together in front of him, connecting the handcuffs with a soft ‘click.’ His mouth falls open in a soft ‘o,’ and Thanatos just smiles softly. “I’m going to take you to Elysium,” Than promises, getting up and returning to his seat on Zagreus’s high bed, perfectly positioned for Zagreus to fall over his knees.

And then, after that, he knows—he knows they’re going to be okay.

It’s the hardest thing. He has to drag himself up, convince himself that it’s not gonna hurt, that Thanatos is not going to do him harm. He kneels next to Thanatos, and then drapes himself over his knees, and the urge to cover himself, to flinch, is so strong, and Thanatos hasn’t even started yet. He just runs his fingertips over the red skin of Zagreus’s ass, drawing patterns. Soothing, Zagreus’s mind supplies, but at this point he’s so sore, any attention of any sort makes him tremble.

Suddenly, he’s shaking again, and he can’t stop shaking, and when Thanatos indicates that he’s starting to warm him up by starting with a few little swats, a cry tears itself from Zagreus’s throat.

“I’m going to be so gentle when we’re done with this,” Thanatos tells him, and all he can do is press his face into the comforter. “Rub a nice cream all over your ass, press kisses up and down your softened cock, maybe finger you slowly and get you off again before we go in the lounge and I make you your favorite tea.” His fingers dip between Zagreus’s cheeks, and he takes a second to apply brief pressure to Zagreus’s perineum, just briefly, and Zagreus moans, unsure how he should handle the burst of pleasure among the pain. Then Thanatos hits him again, and it’s the most horrible thing he’s ever experienced.

“You’ll enjoy it, because I won’t tease at all. Can you imagine that? You’ll be exhausted, lying there with your eyes closed, and I’ll put my fingers exactly where you need them. I’ll open you up, I’ll touch the head of your cock, and of course, I’ll be right there with you. I’ll take off my clothes, and you can touch me, too.”

Gods, he wants that. Thanatos gives a particularly hard slap that has Zagreus lurching forward and digging his fingers into the comforter.

“You just have to get through this.”

When Thanatos first starts hitting him the second time, he thinks it’s going to feel like it did before, but this is so different. He feels like fire is lighting up his veins, and it’s not his fire. It’s Thanatos’s. It’s so much, all at once, and it won’t stop. He closes his eyes and entrusts himself completely to his lover, his companion, his friend.

And suddenly, he’s no longer thinking of Tartarus, its endless chambers and the mystery behind its unearthly green glow. He’s no longer thinking of Asphodel, and the way even the smooth cobbles on the walkways burn his feet as if he’s marching over hot coals. And Elysium—Elysium makes him cry because it’s the closest thing he has down here to the mortal realm, a place with grass and waterfalls and flowers and seasons. But he doesn’t think of that either.

It doesn’t matter if he’s allergic to sunlight, it doesn’t matter if he can’t stay alive on the surface, or if he sometimes has a hard time making it there—it doesn’t matter because he is enough. He is enough in Thanatos’s eyes, and he already did more than everyone said he would.  
The tears crest over the rims of his eyes and roll down his cheeks, as fresh as the sea spray when Poseidon’s waves crash on a remote beach on the shores in Greece. Thanatos holds his hand just as tightly as he did through the worst of it, and it’s only as he comes back to himself slowly that he realizes he can loosen his grip.

He doesn’t let go of Thanatos’s hand, just…holds onto it as he breathes.

Somewhere, in the midst of the thoughts swirling around his mind, it occurs to him that he hasn’t said ‘I love you’ back. Is it something he owes Thanatos? Is it something he needs to say now? Does he feel ready to say it back? Is he…in love with Thanatos? At first he thinks it must be the endorphins talking, but then he gives this fragment the last fading energy of his thoughts.

\--

They sit in the lounge together the next morning. Thanatos tells him not to give up.

“I have a theory about why you may be stuck here.”

“What is it?” Zagreus says as he cups the warm mug that Thanatos gave him, filled with a dark liquid that smells of dragon fruit and cinnamon.

“Someone made a pact.”

“What kind of pact? Wouldn’t I know if I was the subject of a pact? My father would have told me if there was something on me, and besides, I would have had to agree…right? Or are you saying it’s something that Father doesn’t know about?”

“I’m saying it’s something he may not have told you. Have you asked him specifically if your name is on something in the administrative chamber? In a way that he couldn’t dodge the question?”

“No,” Zagreus says, chewing his lip.

“That was how you freed Achilles, right? And Sisyphus?”

“Yes,” Zagreus admits. The act of freeing them wasn’t quite as exciting as slashing his way through a horde of monsters, but it was necessary, nonetheless. 

“He may have let you go, physically, but if there’s something magical holding you back, you might want to check it out.” Inwardly, Zagreus feels his heart drop at the idea of sorting one by one through all the parchments in the administrative chamber. He does not want to do that again. 

Zagreus shakes his head. As far as he knows, everyone who enters into a pact with Hades does it voluntarily. Granted, some of them might be coerced, because they don’t come to him unless they’re in really desperate situations, but still, when they are bound by a pact, they know about it. Every single shade.

Can pacts even apply to gods? Even chthonic ones like himself? That he doesn’t know.

“Than, I’m a god, though. I thought the administrative chamber was created to keep track of all the shades. I didn’t think that in any way they would have a god under their power.”

Thanatos shrugs his shoulder and looks back at Zagreus.

“I have a contract for the terms of my employment. You probably have one too, now that you’ve been officially hired.” 

Zagreus raises his eyebrows. He has a contract? Wow. That makes sense, but it’s something he never thought about. 

He feels like Thanatos is onto something, and not in the way that Nyx is, when she knows more than she’s telling but is specifically forbidden to say. He knows that Thanatos genuinely doesn’t know, and is trying to help. 

Zagreus chews on his lip for a second, considering the idea that maybe he’s been focusing the last of his efforts in the wrong place. For sure, it’s something to think about.

“I have to go, Zag. A couple of jobs on the surface are calling me. Will you be okay here?” Thanatos reaches across the table and takes Zagreus’s hand. Thanatos’s hand, over his: cold, but reassuring. He cocks his head, his eyes: questioning.

“Yes, Than, I’ll be okay. But will you be okay? Did you enjoy our time together?” Zagreus reaches out to encompass Thanatos’s hand in both of his and jerks his head towards the bedroom. Thanatos smiles easily and graciously.

“Yes. I enjoyed our evening, and night together, and morning. Maybe, sometime, we can even do this again.”

“I look forward to it.”

“And Zag?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t give up.” Thanatos vanishes in a swirl of mist and smoke.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate everyone who got this far! I would love it if you let me know what you thought. [twitter](https://twitter.com/tavrcsrf)


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